Himura Kenshin's Day Off
by Nekotsuki
Summary: A collection of stories and scenes that you probably shouldn't waste time reading ... um ... I'm serious?
1. Chapter 1

_Hehehe, a distinct word of warning. _

_I have a Live Journal, and I occasionally post joke scenes and crack-fic type entries there. For posterity, I am uploading them here. You are entirely welcome to read them – I'll even preface them with exactly _why _I wrote it – but there probably won't be a serious bit of writing in the lot. These are all jokes, gift fics and random scenes that won't fit elsewhere, and some of them will be really strange. _

_If you do read them, I may suggest that you take them with a grain of salt ...I'll keep my serious writing, it's just I have a perverse sense of humour at times. (That, and some people ask for surprisingly bizarre things when I offer them a gift fic for Christmas. Ack. Not that I'm looking at you, Calger...)_

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**The Tanabata Jasmine Scene You Never Saw**

_Written in June after an amusing conversation with Calger. This takes place between Chapters 14 and 15 of Tanabata Jasmine, and might answer a particularly burning question ..._

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Yoshida scratched his head. "You want _what?_"

Kenshin sighed, running his good hand through his hair. "A pot. Jug. Bucket. Container of some kind. An empty one."

For his patient explanations, he received nothing but suspicion, as the larger man backed up to the door. "I don't know. You had a tofu bucket already, and look what you did with _that._"

"That bucket," said Kenshin loftily, "Belongs to Kaoru-dono. Trust me when I say I wouldn't dream of sullying it in such a fashion."

Yoshida looked confused, a look thus far mildly out of character for him. "I still don't get what you want it for."

If he didn't need to smash the chair over Senzo's head in the very next chapter, Kenshin would have quite cheerfully tested out his upcoming escape plan on the idiot patsy hulking in the doorway. As it was, he rolled off the bed and poked him in the chest hard with one finger. If he hadn't been more than a head shorter than Yoshida and half-naked - for some reason he _still_ hadn't managed to drag out of the giggling author - he might even have looked intimidating.

"Look, you," he hissed. "I'm a man. Normal. Nothing special. I'm human. I have needs."

"I'm not interested."

"_That's not what I meant, you_--" He took a breath. "We won't make port for another two days, and I've been sleeping some nasty sake off for the past three. And then there's another _four_ days once we make port where nobody will give me a break--"

"So?"

Kenshin bared his teeth. "I," he said, "Do _not_ intend to spend nine days _straight_ without a single chance to answer the call of nature."

Finally, comprehension dawned on the big lug's face. "Oh, you should have said. Well, sure. I'll bring you a bucket."

And Kenshin sighed as he left, and sat down on the bed in his cabin, and tried not to think about how hard it was going to be attempting to untie hakama with only his left hand. Made him wish he'd paid more attention to Hiko's binge drinking habits; he'd never seen shishou stagger drunkenly out to empty his bladder. There had to be some trick to it ...

Stupid fangirl authors. What, did they think he was inhuman or something?

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_  
As a note, of course the poor man got to use the bathroom ... there were plenty of 'off camera' moments in which he could. You don't ever see people in pulp movies having to do that sort of thing, right?_

_:slinks off:_


	2. You Promised!

_Back again. (Yes, I'm still writing Snowblind ...hehe. I'm three pages in, which is far better than my last chapter at this stage.)_

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**You Promised!**

_Last year xZig-Zagx wrote me an amusing story where she stalked Kenshin down and captured him in true Mary Sue fashion, mailing him to my doorstep. This year, she made me an AMV! So I thought it high time I returned the favour by writing her this little gift!fic. _

_Both the story and the AMV are quite nifty; you can find the original story that precedes this one on her profile, and if you're interested in what the AMV is like feel free to drop me an email and I'll give you the link. _

_**Warnings**: Out of canonverse, and probably the only self-insert I'll ever write. But I did warn you some of these are strange..._

_**Disclaimer**: Rurouni Kenshin et al do not belong to me, and the stories of a redheaded samurai tied to my bed are LIES, I – oh, um. Never mind._

_--------- _

He was really quite adorable, gulping at her with nervousness in his big violet eyes. Oh sure, he might have kicked and struggled when he first arrived, but just like the blonde, the redhead now beaming at him sunnily was a psychopath not to be messed with. His first attempt to escape was met with the dire threat of being written into a hot and steamy relationship with Saito Hajime, and this particular fangirl was more than willing to go ahead with her threats. After that – not willing to cross the line and have his character assassinated so badly - Himura Kenshin Behaved.

After all, originally she'd promised just to keep him until her next birthday, and that was less than a fortnight away, right? Unfortunately, the gleam in her eyes told otherwise.

"Sessha distinctly remembers you promising that he could go soon," he said hesitantly, yanking at the cuffs that kept him locked to the headboard. "Sessha has been very good, and thinks that maybe you should think about keeping your word--"

"Well, yes..." she said thoughtfully. "And we redheads should always keep our word, I agree."

He brightened at that, straightening in expectancy that she would produce the key to unlock the cuffs. He even gave her a smile. It hadn't been that bad here, after all. True, he'd spent almost all of that time chained to something or other, forced to listen to absent-minded mutterings that 'muses and/or pets shouldn't be allowed to run off'. Every now and then she'd come in and stare beadily at him, make a few notes on paper while muttering about bandits and snow and bunnies and then meander out again, only to be heard laughing like a madwoman downstairs. Apparently she was doing something called 'word processing', which explained the staccato tapping he could always hear.

Privately, Kenshin thought she was quite insane. But as long as she was busy, she wasn't pestering him too much. And she'd also introduced him to something called 'pizza', which was close to okonomiyaki in some ways but not in many others and--

And--

He narrowed his eyes. "Nekotsuki-dono," he ventured warily, "What are you doing with that box?"

She stopped in the doorway to grin at him, the very picture of innocence. "Packing!"

He stared at the box in question. It was tall enough to reach her hips, and just wide enough that – his eyes narrowed. "You are _not_ putting sessha in that thing. You promised."

"Oh, I know." She pulled the flaps back, opening a plastic bag to pour a great many little foam balls into the bottom of the box. "I'm not breaking any promises, don't worry."

"Sessha can't help but worry, particularly as you're now staring at him with that roll of packing tape in hand," he said steadily, surreptitiously trying the cuffs again. Oh, he was very familiar with tape. It was why he was here in the first place. Something about the blonde, and running through the forest and getting ambushed at the last moment and--

She _did_ have the packing tape in hand, didn't she? And now she was casually sauntering up to the bed with a look of honest regret. He tried to yank his feet out of her reach, but he had little space to move – and possibly he'd spent too much time lying here and getting out of shape, because before he knew it she was sitting on his legs, wrapping his ankles securely. It occurred to him that for some reason, authors who were brazen up to selfinsert were _always_ better than he was. Damn them.

"That's not fair!"

"It's very fair!"

"It is _not! You promised!"_

"I promised I wouldn't keep you after my birthday," she said with a grin. "I never said I wouldn't give you to someone else."

"You... but...wha..." He was so lost for words that she'd wrapped up to his knees before he burst out with the words, "That's _cheating!_"

"Oh, hush. It's not like I'm not giving you to someone you don't know or anything. Sheesh."

He froze. "You're not--"

"Yup."

"But she's--"

"Yup."

"But--"

"Oh, shut up." And before he could protest more, she'd slapped a piece of tape over his mouth, using her free hand to poke him incessantly in the ribs just to annoy him. "Zigzag likes to torture, but at least she doesn't write herself into the story to have sex with you."

"Mmf!"

"And she keeps the time line consistent and doesn't mess with alternate realities." She wrapped his wrists and fingers in plenty of tape before uncuffing him from the bed. "You haven't had to be a vampire, or a high school boy, or some seventies gangster with a lot of bling."

"Blm?"

"You wouldn't understand. It's a modern thing." She scruffled his hair and then hauled him up from the bed, dumping him into the box. "Comfy?"

"MMF!"

"Good. It's a long way to New York." She gave a dramatic sigh. "I'll miss my muse, but what can you do? Have fun, Kenshin, it's been a great year."

Then she closed the box lid, and taped it down securely, making sure to leave plenty of air holes for the poor redhead trapped inside. She'd already put the postage stamps required on the outside flap, but the gift required one more thing. She hunted through the nightstand until she came up with a black marker and wrote in huge letters on the side:

_**To Zigzag, **_

_**Thank you for the AMV! Happy belated Christmas! I'll see him back next year, shall I?**_

_**Love,**_

_**Nekotsuki**_

_**---------**_

_:cough: And now, moving on ... but still, these gift fics are kinda fun..._


	3. Aisle Four

_Last one for a bit. I swear, these Christmas gift fics are killers..._

_--------- _

_**Aisle Four**_

_You can blame Calger for this. She was sending me a disc full of nifty anime and AMVs for Christmas and so I offered her a gift fic of her choice. "Give me a subject, and I'll write it," I said. I was sort of assuming she'd ask for something serious like a little bit of WAFF or a fight scene or something, but no... instead, I give you this ... _

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Lenny was a chubby, slightly greasy and distinctly unwashed fanboy geek whose one lucky break in life was that he'd found a job in a place he liked. The Toys R Us Manager didn't really like him, but he _was_ the only one who was willing to work the floor on New Year's Eve. And, although being an unrepentant geek meant he only had a passing relationship with the concepts of 'water' and 'soap', it also meant that he was excellent at palming off toys to mothers who just wanted to escape his stench and his fanboy babbling.

He'd seen many freaks come and go, particularly in the Japanese section. One could always count on the fifteen year old girls coming in to shriek and giggle at all the bishounen unlucky enough to be plastered across key rings, playing cards and wall scrolls. They were more entertaining than the average toddler that could be heard screaming and whining across the store, dragged around by unhappy parents who eyed Lenny with distaste and wondered if their children would ever grow up to be just like him.

Many freaks. Some of them even dressed the part. By and large, even his caffeine-addled geek mind had to admit that not one of them had ever managed to cosplay without looking faintly ridiculous. However, when the familiar and hated muzak chimes sounded over the speakers in the late afternoon, signalling that more gullible customers had entered the store, he grudgingly had to change his mind.

There were four of them; a tall one in white with a spiky headband, two women and a small boy. All of them Japanese, and dressed so authentically in late nineteenth century clothing that he wondered if they'd just gone and raided a local museum. He thought that if they were still around when his shift finished, he might say something to the redheaded chick about how the magenta gi wasn't a particularly good colour for her hair, because _damn, _she was hot. Even if she did have a flat chest. It wasn't until they walked past that the redhead turned to look at him warily with narrowed violet eyes, and he saw the large cross-shaped scar on the cheek – really, wasn't that going a _little far? _ He hoped it was makeup – and realised, with a small jump, that the woman wasn't a woman at all.

After that, so thoroughly revolted that he'd been thinking about making a pass at a man - small and effeminate looking though he may have been - Lenny busied himself with tidying up in the Mattel aisle, mopping up the remnants of a cup of lemonade that had been spilled next to the Rocker Barbie (TM) range. One of the dolls was on the floor. He picked it up by its blonde hair and dangled it into the sticky puddle with a smirk, and so thoroughly distracted himself with pretending it was melting into acidic goo, wicked witch style, that he completely forgot about the four oddities until he heard the faint giggling from the aisle over, followed by the steady lilt of words that sounded deeply offended.

"Sessha does _not_ have pink hair."

_Speaking Japanese, too_, he marvelled. He'd studied the language with a mind to go to Tokyo one day – apparently the gaming stores were open there _all night_ – and besides, he'd found that the mere use of the language impressed the fanbrats more than any pick up line. _But isn't 'sessha' taking it a bit too far? I mean man, that's practically like thee-ing and thou-ing your way through the English language--_

There was a snort of laughter from the other man – he was willing to bet this one was the tall guy in white. "Oh come on, Kenshin. I think the likeness is _just _like you.."

"Look, look! If you flick the switch he lights up!"

"AAH! His eyes changed colour!"

Lenny was really curious now – what were they looking at? He'd thought they would have gone straight to the Japanese section given the way they were dressed, but by the sound of it they were only one aisle away, which had them still in the Mattel section. He stood up, leaving the doll to its sticky fate, and headed down the aisle to spy on them. He rounded the corner just to see the redhead – Kenshin, he presumed – snatch something from the boy with speed that could only be called godlike, so fast that Lenny didn't even get to see what exactly it was that the redhead had shoved up his wide sleeve. Technically that was called shoplifting, and he really should be alerting security – yet the rather flat, narrow look of the redhead's eyes convinced him that the mere idea of trying to have him arrested might be rather detrimental to his health.

Although the woman with them was pretty hot, and just his age too ... maybe he could sidle down to them and politely request that Kenshin put the ...whatever it was ... back on the shelf as a way to introduce himself ... unless she was a man too, but he highly doubted it. For a start, she most distinctly had breasts--

The redhead was staring at him. Pointedly, and in a distinctly _un-_effeminate fashion. Lenny hastily revised all previous opinions and thoughts and busied himself with tidying the end of the aisle, trying not to notice the glare that seemed to be intent on burning holes through him. And was it only now that he'd noticed that the redhead was wearing a sword? Lenny gulped. Any moment now, the guy was going to come up here and slice him in two for daring to look at his girlfriend. He was sure of it.

Luckily, the boy distracted Kenshin yet again, hands diving into the shelves with glee. "Not to worry, Kenshin! There's another twenty of them back here--"

"_Give _me those!" Kenshin rounded back swiftly, face going red. The kid was grinning at him, dancing backward with his arms full of something small, brown and knobbly looking. Kenshin probably wouldn't have much difficulty tackling the kid anyway, if the tall guy hadn't been aiding and abetting the kid by getting in the way. The attractive chick – _not_ one he would ever _dream_ of picking up, Lenny swore to himself – was standing out of the way, seeming torn between laughing and maybe coming to her boyfriend's defense.

"Aw, come on, Kenshin!" the boy smirked. "Can't you see the fun in this?" He lifted one up in the air, swishing it around. "Rarr, I am Battousai! Best swordsman in Japan! _Hyaa!"_

"Yahiko--"

"Made entirely of potatoes!" the tall one supplied helpfully.

"_Sano!_"

"Yo, be careful Kenshin, I think someone flipped your switch there, your hair's all lighting up --"

With a faint growl, Kenshin leapt past Sano to tackle the kid to the ground. Lenny backpedalled a bit, eyes wide as he leapt to the conclusion that there was about to be a homicide on his shift. But no, the redhead seemed to be playing nice, at least for now, sitting on top of Yahiko and yanking away the toys he was holding, as more of the kid's armload bounced and rattled their way down the aisle. One of them fetched up at Lenny's feet, and he glanced down.

"Oooh, be careful! He's entered battle mode!"

There was a giggle as the woman finally chose sides. "Oh come on, Kenshin. They're cute."

"_Kaoru-dono!_"

The redhead sounded scandalised. Lenny looked up at him – the poor man was beet red – before kneeling down to scoop the Mr Potato Head from the floor, poking at its badly made, felt magenta gi and white hakama. He blinked – since when was Mattel making a Japanese Mr Potato Head? The hair was bright pink nylon and long, sticking up at awkward angles and the eyes were strange. They were the flat, plastic additions that you usually found on plush toys, only the pupils that rattled around inside the casings were violet, not black. There was also a tiny cross scar carved into the side of its face. Had one of them mentioned a switch? Lenny felt up under the back of the little gi and found the tiny button at the back.

_-Flick-_

Ah. This particular Potato Head was faintly translucent; a light had clicked on within, having the effect of making the potato glow slightly. The hair turned fluorescent, and the eyes had gone... amber? Lenny stared at it, a vague memory coming to mind of one of the plush toys in the Japanese section from an older anime that came out in the late nineties.

Then he stared down the aisle at the frazzled looking redhead currently obsessed with collecting each and every one of the little Mattel/Japanese hybrids that he could find amidst gales of laughter from his friends. Kenshin. Battousai.

Right...

"Kenshin, do you really think you should be doing that?"

"They're an abomination worse than Shishio," was the feverish response . "Sessha will destroy them before they can take over Japan."

"I dunno, isn't that like ... suicide or something?"

"Shut up, Sano."

"Or maybe genocide."

"I mean it!"

"And anyway, don't you have a vow not to kill?"

"Sessha," Kenshin growled, "Is sorely tempted to break it--"

Lenny quietly backed out of the aisle while they were arguing, leaving behind the scene of Sano and Kaoru holding onto Kenshin's arms so he couldn't draw the sword in an attempt to murder an entire line of Mattel stock, intent on finding his manager and saying that no, unfortunately, he _couldn't_ do the New Year shift after all. He was overworked and underpaid, and while he usually didn't mind, when it came to hallucinating anime characters in Aisle Four, it was time to go home and sleep it off.

"Hey, lift his gi up so we can see if he's got a light switch--"

"_Sessha will kill you all!"_

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_So the challenge was: "There has to be a Toys R Us shop. And the Kenshingumi. And a Battousai Potato Head." :points fingers wildly: It's all Calger's fault! ... although apparently Ranma151773012 is equally to blame. (And you know I had to look those numbers up to get them right...)_

_This little exercise has prompted a flood of challenge requests ... but I won't be doing any more until my Snowblind chapter is finished. Neener neener! And Happy New Year!_


	4. Mitsurugi Dragon

_This is a challenge for a friend of mine. I apparently posted it in my LJ at just the right time, because she was having a very bad day and I successfully made her laugh, so my job is halfway done. The terms of the challenge? Um … speak for themselves. _

_Oh yeah. I lied about the whole self-insert thing. It wasn't intentional, I swear…_

_Disclaimer: I don't own Kenshin. Webfoot or the pink and purple dragon in question. I do own me, so … yeah. _

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**Mitsurugi Dragon**

It was all Webfoot's fault. Well ... if she was minded to be fair, maybe it really was _her_ fault for offering to write Webfoot something so stupid in the first place. She would say that she had spent a hundred sleepless nights on the problem, but that would be lying, because despite the niggling problem she was having it was certainly nothing to lose sleep over.

Probably it hadn't been a hundred nights, either. She was prone to be melodramatic. Not that she'd ever admit it.

"Webfoot," she muttered, "I hate you. Potato head Kenshin? No problem. Cliché fics of doom? Easy. _What's the goddamn deal with the dragon?_"

It wasn't that she _couldn't_ think of circumstances in which Kenshin would turn into a small, pink and purple, fire breathing dragon with measles, provided she was willing to write something that could only be mistaken for the Ruroken canonverse if one drank twenty vodkas straight and then squinted at it sideways through a straw. (Possibly even then they'd spot the difference, but their attention would be too taken with the stomach pumping sure to follow.) But everything she thought of in the end just seemed too ... _lame_.

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_MITSURUGI DRAGON (reviews)_  
_He's called a dragon by many that know him, but what happens when an unexpected illness interferes with the rurouni's true heritage?_

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Yeah. So much for that idea. But then, maybe she could get away with its universal lameness if she just added sex. Posting online had taught her earlier that drivel plus sex equals OMGHOTNEZZ, so she was sure people wouldn't notice the feeble quality of the story if she just layered on enough smut to turn the air blue, or something.

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_MITSURUGI DRAGON (reviews)  
He's called a dragon by many that know him, but what happens when an unexpected illness interferes with the rurouni's true heritage? Rowr! It's tanuki on dragon action like you've never seen before! Just what CAN he do with that forked tongue?  
_  
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God in heaven, no.

Thoughts of dragons kept her preoccupied at work the next day. Between phone calls from the cockroaches of the nation, she was thinking. Maybe it was a metaphor; that Kenshin was called a dragon was canon, and his gi did seem to change colour between pink and purple depending on the artist and the lighting ... God knew how she'd get the fire breathing part in. But really, wasn't the challenge dragon in question lifted from a Disney movie? The Sword in the Stone, wasn't it?

"Crossover," she muttered. This was bad, because it immediately cast Hiko as Merlin to Kenshin's Arthur, and the mere thought of Kenshin being the master of lethal wand drawing dredged up unpleasant comparisons to Harry Potter, and there were enough of those already. So, no.

Crud. She was running out of ideas. The problem was that she just couldn't take the subject seriously. Maybe she should try her hand at poetry. Hell, every other fan author and her dog were doing it these days...

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_She knew that bliss would be amiss  
When morning came to call  
She found his old magenta gi  
Just thrown against the wall  
She gave a frown  
And looked around  
Then Kaoru screamed without a sound  
And fled the room as fast she could, which wasn't slow at all.  
_  
_Before the door, across the floor  
A scaled head did rise  
And Kenshin looked about the room  
With baffled, dizzy eyes  
His wife had fled  
The marriage bed  
Just why she had could not be said.  
But something deep inside him warned of unpleasant surprise—_

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And that just reminded her that there was a reason she was a writer and not a poet. The chances of her turning in three or four pages of _that_ were about as great as her chances of getting a slow, painful death thrust upon her by the readers in outraged retaliation. She gave a sigh. Screw it. Maybe people would be just too blind to notice if she made one minor change to the canonverse...

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_"You know, Kenshin?" Kaoru eyed him worriedly. "I can't help but think you're trying to hide something from me. You seem ... different somehow."_

_The small, multi-coloured dragon wisely kept his mouth shut. He loved Kaoru, really he did, but he was having hard enough trouble trying to hang out the laundry without accidentally puncturing the sheets with the razor sharp claws he was sporting these days. (He couldn't remember ever having trouble with them before, but he supposed that was just his fever talking.) The last thing he needed was the added distraction of Kaoru talking at him when he was already having such difficulty focusing on the laundry. _

_"I have it!" she finally cried, jumping up. "There's something definitely wrong with the way you look!"_

_"Oro?" Kenshin squeaked. "Kaoru-dono is mistaken. Maybe the weather is getting to you. You should take a bath. It should only take a few breaths to heat it up--"_

_"Don't try to change the subject, Himura Kenshin!" She swooped down on him with a glint in her eye that made him backpedal with another 'Oro!' and trip over his own tail. She pounced, scooping him up to hold him in the air, ignoring the flap of his wings as he desperately tried to escape._

_"There!" she said. "That's what it is! You have a rash all over your stomach. Why didn't you tell me you were sick?" _

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"No. No. HELL no!" she snarled, tossing her hairbrush at the computer. "Okay, fine! I give up! It's a _HORRIBLE CHALLENGE, AND I AM UNDONE!"_

Then she looked around furtively to see if anyone had witnessed her prissy tantrum, sat down and kept writing. Giving up was for losers, after all. Someone should have really explained that people who never quit _and_ never win are idiots in their own right, but …

_His mother sat him down on her knee and tried to explain. "See, Shinta, you're what's born from one of those inexplicable male pregnancies nobody bothers to explain…"_

No.

"_Well, when a mummy maiden and a daddy dragon love each other very much…"_

No.

_Himura Kenshin was just minding his own business when he was bitten by a radioactive tofu bucket…_

Chuckle. Maybe…

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…

…

…

_:runs really fast:_


	5. Breaking the Curse

_Hark, I still exist. And write crack, no less! This was a gift for Zigzag, who was having a bad day so I thought it my civic duty to make her laugh (either that or have her throw things at me...) _

_Warnings: other author insert, quasi-self insert, and ... well, it IS crack. What other warning do you need? ;)_

* * *

**Breaking the Curse  
**

* * *

Himura Kenshin knew he was in deep trouble the moment he opened his eyes to the brilliant, calming aqua of the Caribbean Ocean. A rather spectacular view, complete with white glistening beaches, and if he peered warily to his left he could just make out the slanted, low hanging palms, wafting gently in the breeze.

It was all very delightful, apart from the fact that he'd been washing Kaoru's underclothes in Tokyo scant seconds before.

Further inspection of his surroundings revealed that he was lounging comfortably in a deck chair of the most luxurious proportions with a small beach table to his left, sporting some sort of slushy concoction that he supposed was for drinking, though why there was a large slice of lemon perched delicately on the rim was far beyond him. Kenshin blinked warily down at the bowl of grapes nestled innocently next to the glass.

Something was clearly afoot.

"Well," he said cautiously after a moment. "Sessha is …very comfortable here, de gozaru."

The absolute lack of response bar the gentle sounds of the ocean did nothing to reassure him.

Kenshin held himself very still for a few moments, then eased himself back into the chair, ensuring he made no sudden moves. Loudly, he added, "In fact, this one is so comfortable he feels he will take a long nap. Very long. After all, it's not like there is anyone waiting just beyond the trees for sessha to let his guard down."

The slow melt of ice in the strange slushy drink caused the ice cubes to _clink_. He twitched.

"A very long nap," he repeated.

"Right here. Without any way to protect myself," he added.

"In fact, sessha will be defenseless," he offered hopefully.

There was silence. He was sure one of the palms had waggled its fronds mockingly at him. Kenshin sighed. Confident in the fact that the moment he relaxed and closed his eyes he would be under siege from a horde of vengeful Bakumatsu widows, he sank fully into the chair and did his best to impersonate an innocent and entirely vulnerable weakling, which given he'd had years of practice at it wasn't too hard, really.

Wrathful armies of psychopathic orphans and bereaved maniacal wackjobs with depraved sister-complexes completely failed to mob him with cries of revenge.

He was almost disappointed. As it was, the gentle breeze carrying the tang of salt was beginning to make him relax despite himself. The rurouni cracked an eye open and squinted beadily at the palms, just in case there happened to be ninja hiding among the coconuts.

"Okay," he muttered. "Teleportation isn't a trait I've manifested thus far … though give the fan girls enough time I suppose _someone_ will have me do it. But really, this one would just like to go back to washing Kaoru's underthings. In particular that one with the frilly bits." He peered up at the sky. "If that's okay with you? I'd like to go home now. I have some nice canon scenes coming up in my future, and I don't want to be late."

The Powers That Be met his polite request with an absolute lack of interest. Kenshin sighed again, and reached for the slushy drink. It appeared to have melted a little in the warm sun, but perhaps it was supposed to do that. He took a small sip and grimaced at the bitter tang. It tasted so horrible, in fact, that he needed to take another mouthful to reassure himself that he hadn't imagined its terrible flavour.

Ah, well. He supposed he'd found himself in worse places over the years.

"All right," he said blissfully. "Sessha will just finish this horrible drink, and then he'll be--"

There was an odd noise that sounded suspiciously like the ocean had hiccupped at him. Kenshin blinked and stared at the water in surprise. How odd. It took him a moment to notice the sky had been blotted out directly above him. Peering upward once more, he noticed the shaggy edging of a large purple beach umbrella, leaving him comfortably in the cool shade.

"Oh," he said uncertainly. "Well, sessha does burn easily, but—"

"_Hi!"_ someone chirped.

Kenshin froze. The voice seemed familiar, somehow. Its bright, cheery edge spoke of gleeful sadism, danced on the edge of his memory and sounded alarm bells deep within, inciting a sudden, primal response from his brain that screamed at him to draw a sword and hack at it now, _right now, _his vow not to kill be damned.

Masterfully he restrained the urge to rip the arm off his deck chair and bludgeon the chirpy speaker into so much red pudding. Instead, eye twitching, he very slowly turned his head to the right, noting with genuine horror that along with the umbrella a second deck chair had manifested on the beach next to his own, the small table between the two.

The blonde girl lounging on it grinned hugely and gave him a dainty wave.

"Oh, god," Kenshin said wearily. "It's you."

"No need to be like that," the blonde said in hurt tones. "It's not like _I_ put you here. Just relax!"

He picked up the remains of his drink and tossed it down, then fought the urge to cough it all back up again. When his eyes stopped watering, he turned his glare back to the girl. "I don't suppose," he said succinctly, "That I'm dreaming? And any moment now, you're going to be set upon by hordes of midget gingerbread men and carried into the ocean to drown while the orchestra plays Wars of the Last Wolves?"

The blonde grinned. "Nope."

"Damn."

"Though I like the whole gingerbread touch!" she added, which might have been a bizarre attempt to console him.

"Kaoru-dono tried to make them not too long ago," Kenshin said gloomily.

"Oh."

"What do you want, Zig-Zag?"

"Me? Nothing!" She waved her arms around, the very picture of innocence. This meant very little; he was reminded uneasily of Soujiro's daffy grin. "Trust me, you're perfectly safe here. At least, _I_ won't hurt you today. A friend of mine's just testing a theory."

Kenshin froze. After a moment, he carefully put his empty glass down, swallowing. "A _friend_?"

"Yeah. You remember Nekotsuki, don't you?"

Zig-Zag plucked a drink from the table, sipping something red that had a strawberry balanced precariously on the rim. He didn't remember the drink having been there before. In fact, as he looked down, another of the slushy drinks had reappeared, complete with another twist of lemon, even though the last twist was sitting forlornly on top of the grapes. The name _Nekotsuki_ made him snatch for it hastily.

"Oh good, you do remember." Zig-Zag gave him a wicked grin. "Well, don't panic. _She_ isn't going to hurt you either."

"Sessha finds that hard to believe," he muttered. Half of the bitter slush vanished down his throat before he found the courage to ask the next question. "Although 'Caribbean lounging' is not really what I was expecting. If neither of you are here to heap all manner of torture on my head and reap the joyous angst of the masses, is there any reason for me to be here?"

"Well, I'd _like_ to hurt you," she said mournfully, fingers twitching as if garrotting slight-framed redheads in their sleep. Kenshin eyed them suspiciously and leaned back at a safe distance. "But that wouldn't help. Nekotsuki's trying to find a way to break the fanfiction curse."

"The…what?"

"_Curse._ You know. Bad stuff." She nodded sagely. "Happens all the time to a lot of writers."

He made no attempt to keep the glee from his voice, no matter how out of character it might seem. "Fanfiction writers are getting hurt on my account?"

"All the time." She grinned. "Remember how Nekotsuki had a bad guy slam you in the head with a rifle?"

"In a 'barely recovered from post-traumatic amnesia' sort of way," he said stiffly. It hadn't been one of his better moments. In fact, between Nekotsuki and Zig-Zag and a few others in the fandom, he considered himself fantastically lucky to be able to sit here and drink alcoholic slush in a completely uninjured fashion. The thought cheered him greatly, until he remembered that most normal people got to enjoy being healthy on a regular basis.

That, and he'd still rather be washing Kaoru's frilly underthings when it came right down to it. Kenshin sighed and tested the alcoholic slush in question in a futile attempt to see if it tasted any better.

Zig-Zag sipped at her drink. "The day after she posted that chapter, she was smacked in the back of the head by this huge bird--"

Kenshin choked on his drink. Slush spattered on the sand as he doubled over coughing. The blonde annoyance at his side thumped him between the shoulder blades in a way that was not so much designed to assist with breathing as it was for fracturing his spine.

"Don't waste the frozen Margarita!" She glared at him. "She'll be drinking that!"

He finally managed to get his breath back, and stared at her blurry outline a little hazily. "So, this one is currently sitting on a beach drinking slushies because the author was concussed by a bird?" He blinked watering eyes, and nodded. "I see. Perfect sense."

"Well, she's not the only one."

"There have been more homicidal birds?"

"No," Zig-Zag said impatiently. "I mean we others are noticing the same problem. If an author break a character's arm, _their_ arm gets broken. Cuts and bruises and nasty fevers all seem to rebound. I got sick because I made you sick once. And Nekotsuki spends all her time either complaining about all the injuries she's accidentally inflicted on herself through her characters, or whimpering in a corner because she's just written some really sadistic scene and she's waiting for the hammer to fall, kinda thing. I mean, you didn't see what she wrote in Underdark."

"She could just stop," Kenshin said tartly. He'd never been tart in his entire life, but now seemed a good time to experiment. "So could you. Sessha sees nothing wrong with writing stories in which he remains uninjured throughout. Perhaps," he added hopefully, "you should consider writing romance? That seems to go down well."

"Can't be done," Zig-Zag said in mournful tones. "Most of us sadists don't have a romantic bone in our body. Besides, have you _seen_ what passes for romance in your fandom?"

'Fandom' was a relatively new word to Kenshin, but the more he heard it the more he despised it. And as a matter of fact, he _had_ seen the romance, in which he always seemed to be some dark, sexy, possessive version of himself – a version that tended to reduce Kaoru to quivering jelly with one quirk of his sensual lips, and one which he secretly kind of dug. He coughed self-consciously, blinking a little to try and clear his head.

It occurred to him that he should stop drinking the slushies now, but he still hadn't managed to confirm whether they tasted horrible or merely bad. He tossed back the contents of the second glass and tossed the glass to the sand. "This doesn't explain," he said unsteadily, "why this one is lounging on a beach with his literary arch-nemesis. And isn't this sort of story frowned upon?"

"That's the thing!" The blonde looked positively gleeful, slurping the last of her drink down with the daintiness of a giraffe in a tutu. "See, Nekotsuki had this idea to make the curse work _for_ us. She's testing it out right now."

Kenshin blinked.

Zig-Zag rolled her eyes. "Really, you're _such_ a simpleton. Okay, see how you're on a beach? A really nice one? With frozen Margaritas and a nice sun umbrella? And totally, might I add, uninjured in every way?" She paused. "Except maybe for the drunken bit. Um. But I don't think she minds that much, given how much she's drinking to write this…"

"Sessha," Kenshin said with great dignity, "Is not drunk. De gozaru."

She grinned wickedly. "Of course you're not. Anyway. Do you get it?"

The rurouni considered his place in the universe of lunatic fan authors, and sighed. "She's trying to lull me into a false sense of security?"

"No."

"She's attempting to get me drunk to take advantage of my sexy but defenceless body?"

"N—" Zig-Zag paused, drawing back a little to size him up. Then she smiled sweetly, placing another slushy drink in his hand. "No."

"Oh." He stared at the glass foggily. "No. I don't get it."

"Oh well," she sighed. "You'll probably get the idea when a white-haired pretty-boy psychopath with a no-dachi and a giant mutant turtle in blue show up arguing about who gets to slather sunscreen all over your back."

"…oro?"

* * *

_**Author's Field Notes: **__ Dammit, another failure. What does it take to get me and ZZ a Caribbean vacation around here? I guess in retrospect we should have stuck to a little more realism, but at least this effort gave us the novel sight of a drunken, hysterical rurouni desperately trying to flee the intimate attentions of Agent Bishop and all four members of Breaking Benjamin … you'd think we never did anything nice for him. Jerk._


End file.
